Friday, April 10, 2009

Carvin' Jack

I was recently in the woods with my son. He handed me a stick he had been carrying while he went to play a game with some other kids. I happened to have my Flexcut Carvin' Jack with me, so I decided to pass the time by carving a face in his stick. This was my first real opportunity to use the Carvin' Jack and I thought I would share some thoughts about it.

The Carvin' Jack turned out to be quite a nice little tool for this kind of ad-hoc carving. It is fairly light and easy to carry with the included leather carrying case. There are three blades with different profiles on each side. All of blades lock securely in place when opened. Because of the design of the blades, the Carvin' Jack is sold in either right or left handed models.

I did find it a little difficult to open the blades since they tend to drag other blades open with them. When opening the knife blade, the V-tool and chisel blades would start to come out as well and I would have to push them closed before cutting with the knife. But this seems a small price to pay for having all these blades in such a small tool.

Even though this particular carving could have been completed with a simple knife, it went much faster with the addition of some of the special blades. The hair went very quickly with the help of the V-tool. Overall, I enjoyed carving with this tool. It's a bit expensive, but I received this one as a gift from my lovely wife. If you do a lot of whittling, you could probably justify the price with the added speed some of these blades could provide.

If you have any questions about the Carvin' Jack, let me know. Below are a few pictures of the tool.